Mikel Arteta Coy On Eddie Nketiah’s Potential Starting Berth Against Chelsea

Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta isn’t against starting Eddie Nketiah…

Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta hasn’t ruled out a potential starting berth for the returning Eddie Nketiah after the forward replaced Alexandre Lacazette during Saturday’s clash against Sheffield United, Football London reports.

Nketiah spent the first half of the season on loan at Leed United and despite netting five times in the Championship, the 20-year-old found first-team football hard to come by.

The club made the decision to recall this month and the expectation was that he would go on loan to another club for the remainder of the season with interest from the likes of Bristol City and Nottingham Forrest.

However, after being impressed with him in training, Arteta decided that Nketiah will remain part of the squad which was rather timely.

Our options across the forward line are quite threadbare at the minute with Reiss Nelson suffering a hamstring injury, while Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is currently serving a three-match ban for his challenge on Max Meyer.

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“Every player has a chance to start,” Arteta said about Nketiah’s chances of starting at Stamford Bridge.

“[Nketiah] is in the squad. We will assess who is in the best conditions to play in who is training well and we’ll make the decision based on that.”

Nketiah seemed to struggle to hold the ball up when he replaced Lacazette during the final minutes which allowed Sheffield United to continue to apply pressure.

The aforementioned Frenchmen is great in that role and replacing him with any member of our squad doesn’t seem to work. Having said that, Nketiah can certainly do a job on either wing and it would be interesting to see how Arteta uses the academy graduate.